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Some of the most consequential fights over Colorado government finance in the coming years won’t happen at the state legislature or at the ballot box, but in a courtroom, where fiscal conservatives and business groups are contesting government fees of as little as 20 cents.

In Aspen, a taxpayer advocacy group is fighting a 20-cent surcharge on grocery bags in a lawsuit that’s now gone all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court.

At the state government level, a small business coalition is arguing that the secretary of state’s office for decades has been illegally using business filing fees to finance a slew of unrelated government services.

And — perhaps most significantly — the TABOR Foundation is challenging the constitutionality of a $264 million hospital fee that generates another $264 million in matching funds from the federal government to pay for uncompensated care.

At issue in each of these cases is a seemingly simple question: What’s the difference between a tax and a fee?

But no matter how small some of the contested fees are, the answer could have wide-ranging consequences for taxpayers and virtually every level of Colorado government.

Colorado State University political science professor John Straayer doesn’t understand the state can still spend money any way it wants; it just can’t take a bigger share without voter approval. That is the major change to its “fiscal authority.”

Money for transportation and higher education has NOT “eroded.” It just has not increased at Straayers’ desired rate, and the sources of funding have changed so that user pay is a preferable source.

Referendum C was supposed to “solve the problem” of revenue control, and end in five years. It did not solve the fictional “ratchet effect” problem and, twelve years later, we are losing $1 BILLION yearly in excess revenue refunds. The anti-TABOR sides’ solution is to try another statutory change to the constitutional formula.

The state publicly says its total spending is about $27.1 billion yearly, almost three times what it was when TABOR passed. I just found out that amount does not as it includes “continuing appropriations” NOT made by the JBC (Joint Budget Committee) annually. That’s another two or three BILLION or more than the Colorado budget shows.

Colorado state lawmakers increasingly engage in fiscal gymnastics to get around provisions of the state’s landmark Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), according to both supporters and critics of the state’s 25-year-old constitutional amendment. Continue reading →

Governor Calls Special Session to Fix Legislative/Executive Goof UP!

If SB 267 wasn’t already enough of an affront to Colorado taxpayers, paying for a special legislative session to fix what our esteemed legislators and Governor failed to notice in the unconstitutional SB267 makes me “mad as hell” and “I don’t want to take it anymore!” Special sessions are expensive! SB 267 starts off as unconstitutional (multiple subjects) piece of legislation; and, is an egregious violation of Taxpayers Bill of Rights (no vote by the people) for the tax and debt increases. Mess ups like this do not constitute an immediate problem which must be addressed by immediate corrective legislation. Governor expects legislature to ignore the constitution and simply tack on another illegal tax.

By the way, reinstating a sales tax requires a VOTE of the people. The Colorado Constitution is very clear: tax increases must be approved by a vote of the people. Calling on all Colorado taxpayers to go to the Capitol and demand “Let Us Vote!”

Colorado state lawmakers increasingly engage in fiscal gymnastics to get around provisions of the state’s landmark Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), according to both supporters and critics of the state’s 25-year-old constitutional amendment.

Approved by voters in 1992, the TABOR amendment mandates that state and local governments get voter approval for specified tax increases, and it limits the rate of government spending growth based on population increases and inflation.

Though a subsequent voter-approved measure eased the spending cap, critics like Jon Caldara, president of the Denver-based Independence Institute, say the legislature has turned to “dark money,” such as newly designated “fees” that don’t require votes of the people, to avoid TABOR’s restrictions. Colorado courts have tended to uphold those TABOR workarounds.

In a blog post, Caldara pointed to efforts to create a hospital provider fee as one of the ways lawmakers evade the spirit of the amendment and avoid difficult budget decisions. The bill exempting the hospital fee from the TABOR spending cap was signed by Gov. John Hickenlooper in May.

Caldara credits TABOR with helping the state avoid economic pain. When the nation went into a recession in 2002, other states saw huge drops in revenues that caused massive budget shortfalls, but that didn’t happen in Colorado, he said.

Other observers, however, say TABOR has made Colorado nearly impossible to govern.

The fate of a November ballot question that could lead to Fort Collins providing high-speed internet services is in the hands of Larimer County District Court judge.

Fort Collins resident Eric Sutherland and attorneys representing the city squared off in court Friday morning to argue about whether the content and form of the broadband ballot question meet legal requirements.

District Court Judge Thomas French has until Tuesday to decide whether to change the ballot language approved by City Council or let it stand.

The city’s deadline for certifying the ballot language to the Larimer County Clerk’s Office is Sept. 8. The county is coordinating the Nov. 7 election.

Sutherland raised five complaints about the ballot language, ranging from the lack of a comma, which he said made the question grammatically incorrect, to whether it complies with the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, or TABOR, amendment to the state constitution.

If approved, the measure would amend the City Charter to allow but not require the City Council to establish a telecommunications utility. The utility would be a standalone entity or part of the city’s Light and Power Utility.

It’s your money.
TABOR allows you a vote to let the government keep it or if you would rather have it in your pocket.

El Paso County TABOR initiative could jumpstart local funding for I-25 widening

Posted: Aug 29, 2017 8:42 PM EDTUpdated: Aug 29, 2017 8:43 PM EDT

Written By Ted Skroback, Reporter

El Paso County initiative could jumpstart local funding for I-25

El Paso County could soon have a ballot initiative asking to keep close to $15 million in excess tax revenues. A large chunk of the excess money would go to the I-25 widening project.

El Paso County Commissioners unanimously passed the first reading of the ballot measure for TABOR dollars, next week will be a final decision for placing it on the November ballot.

The initiative would reset the budget cap to use that excess money and hopefully jump start local funding for the interstate project.

“I believe that local governments need to have skin in the game,” said El Paso County Commissioner Mark Waller in April, pushing for local funding for the I-25 widening project at the newly formed I-25 Gap Coalition meeting made up of local municipalities along the front range.

Tuesday was the first step for Waller getting his wish of local funding after the state legislature couldn’t plan for infrastructure funding

TABOR Committee featured at national ALEC conference in Denver

Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) was in demand at the 44th Annual American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) meeting held at the Hyatt Convention Center in Denver at the end of July. The TABOR Committee board of directors and friends presented the case (in a three hour workshop session) showing other states how to adopt measures similar to TABOR. TABOR Committee Chairman Penn Pfiffner also addressed approximately 60 legislators and staff at a special session on July 28th concerning the importance of TABOR-like efforts in their own states.

TABOR is a Colorado constitution protection (approved by the voters of Colorado in 1992) that restrains tax increases to not greater than the sum of population growth and the rate of inflation without a vote of the people. It is the gold standard for all 50 states regarding sound fiscal responsibility. It protects the citizen’s right to be heard on tax increases that otherwise would not be subject to voter approval. It was because of TABOR that Colorado voters had the opportunity to recently reject two very large tax increases in Colorado. Amendment 66, a $1 billion tax increase proposal in 2013, and Amendment 69, a $25 billion tax increase proposal in 2016, were both soundly defeated at the ballot box by more than 60% of Colorado voters. TABOR made those votes possible.

The American Legislative Exchange Council is a nonprofit organization of conservativestate legislators and private sector representatives who draft and share model state-level legislation for distribution among state governments in the United States. ALEC provides a forum for state legislators and private sector members to collaborate on model bills—draft legislation that members may customize and introduce for debate in their own state legislatures. The ALEC annual meeting included keynote presentations by former US Speaker Newt Gingrich, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Colorado Congressman Ken Buck, Kentucky Governor Matthew Bevin, and other national leaders.

Please visit www.thetaborfoundation.org to learn more about TABOR and how you can help protect Colorado voter’s right to be heard.

Colorado Court Grants Taxpayers’ Motion as to Healthcare Tax

July 27, 2017 – DENVER, CO. A Colorado group that defends the rights of taxpayers today celebrated the ruling by a Denver District Court accepting its amended and supplemental complaint against Colorado agencies and their officials for violating the Colorado Constitution’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR).

The TABOR Foundation filed its motion on June 30, 2017. Two years earlier, on June 26, 2015, the TABOR Foundation filed its initial lawsuit charging its members should have been allowed to vote on whether a “hospital provider fee” may be imposed on Colorado hospitals; since 2009 Colorado’s Department of Health Care Policy and Financing has collected tens of millions and perhaps even a hundred million dollars.

Federal law lets States impose healthcare assessments to pay for Medicaid services, but the regulations provide for “taxes” and not “fees” as Colorado calls them to avoid TABOR. Although the 2009 act says the funds will be kept separate from the general fund, in fiscal years 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 some of the tax proceeds were put in the general fund.

The TABOR Foundation sought an end to the tax and refund of revenues collected, with interest, as required by TABOR. As of October 16, 2015, a motion by the Colorado defendants to dismiss the lawsuit had been briefed fully. On May 30, 2017, however, Governor Hickenlooper signed into law S.B. 17-267, which created the Colorado Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability Enterprise to administer the Hospital Provider Charge beginning on July 1, 2017. All of the TABOR Foundation’s 2015 claims remain virtually identical, except for the new challenge to creation of the “Enterprise.”

DENVER – Transportation funding in Senate Bill 17-267, that was billed as the “Sustainability of Rural Colorado” Act, may in fact filter to more-populated areas if a newly-formed association made up of like-minded county commissioners has anything to say about it.

SB 267 was rushed through with more than 70 pages of strike below in the waning moments of the 2017 legislative session. It was billed as the “Grand Deal” by its supporters and the “Grand Betrayal” by its detractors.

There is no doubt it was controversial throughout the process because it involved reclassifying the Hospital Provider Fee from a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) governed account to an enterprise, non-TABOR restricted account. It also put into use Certificates of Participation (COPs), which some believe are an end around TABOR. Some also believed it violated Colorado’s single-subject law for new legislation.

Since it was signed into law and took effect July 1, Complete Colorado broke the news that a drafting error would cost special taxing districts such as the Regional Transportation District (RTD) and the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD), which funds the Denver Zoo and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, millions in revenue.

Complete Colorado has also learned that an organized group of county commissioners called Counties and Communities Acting Together (CCAT) see the new law as a stepping stone to further weaken TABOR.